
yM^^-^<^:':?^Ct€-t^x^ 



^-^^~n-ty 



X/C^ 



A/ r^icA/<jicf 




aass_ca_i4_ 

Book , T? ' ^ ^: 



TWO LETTERS 



//J 

1v7 



PUBLIC SUBJECTS. 



RICHARD RUSH, 

OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT, 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

L. R. BAILEY, PITINTJER 
July, 1851. 



e^^- 
1 

'1^^'' 



[Persons who have seen these Letters in Manuscript, 
have thought that they would be read with interest by more 
than could have an opportunity of seeing them in manu- 
script. They are printed for private distribution, and it is 
proper to say that Mr. Trescot has had no agency in their 
appearance in this form, though a hope is indulged that he 
will not object to it ; the less, as his own excellent produc- 
tion to which they refer in general terms, is in print.] 



Sydenham, near Philadelphia, i 
March 31, 1851. S 

MY DEAR SIR I 

Your favor of the 23d would have 
been sooner acknowledged, but that the season 
was upon us here when those whose home is 
on a few acres in the country, are apt to be 
called off by their small rural occupations. 
This was my case when your letter got to 
hand, but I now find myself at leisure to write 
to you. 

The pamphlet you were so good as to send 
me, entitled '*A few thoughts on the Foreign 
Policy of the United States," written in '49, 
and printed for private distribution, came with 
your letter, and it is with peculiar interest that 
I have read it. It takes liberal, enlarged and 
statesmanlike views of this constantly expand- 
ing field of our public affairs, and some of them 
are very striking by the independent turn of 
thought they exhibit. It is so I regard the 
production. Not confining myself to its mere 
acknowledgment, I will, with your permission, 
venture to go a little into some of its points. 



The subject at any rate offers some variety, 
from the discussions which have been so 
largely absorbing us all of late. 

Taking up, for this occasion, only one of 
your points, I must say, that the manner 
in which you unfold the policy of har- 
mony between ourselves and England, and 
even concerted movements if necessary, me- 
rits, in my opinion, much attention. The 
principle of it is not new with us, but 
has been acted upon, and usefully, in a 
memorable instance, to which I will refer be- 
fore concluding. The objects, time and man- 
ner of applying such a policy, would always 
be under the safeguard of our own approval. 
It would therefore be free from danger; and I 
can conceive of conjunc-tures when its applica- 
tion might give hope of advantage to both 
countries, if not of being useful to other coun- 
tries. We have arrived at a point in time 
when the magnitude and quick succession of 
new events, arrest the attention of all. New 
developments among nations, and new geogra- 
phical relations opening between oceans and 
continents, are not simply extraordinary, but 
must become in many respects revolutionizing 
upon the intercourse, interests and opinions of 



5 

mankind. Vast changes, at hand, must neces- 
sarily affect some of the rules of our political 
conduct. Sooner or later, we shall have to 
review former opinions. We are part and par- 
cel of Christendom, and it is no longer possible 
that a great nation like this can be wholly de- 
tached from its movements, lest we should get 
into " entanHinor alliances." This was a wise 
rule when we would have been the weaker 
party, perfectly wise. Then, concerted move- 
ments of any description might have become 
entangling to us. Amidst the agitations of the 
present and uncertainties of the future in Eu- 
rope, where else can w^e so well look as to 
England for national characteristics interme- 
diate between arbitrary systems of govern- 
ment on one side, and communism or socialism 
seeking to ally itself with power, on the other ? 
What other nation is so near to us in the great 
attributes of national and individual freedom, 
or runs so parallel with us in the prosperity 
resulting from both ? Certainly no other. 

As to mutual interests, I imagine that our 
dealings with Britain and her dominions ex- 
ceed considerably, in amount and value, those 
we maintain with all the rest of the world put 
together, France and her dependencies in- 
cluded, though I have not examined the latest 



statistical reports. The commercial interest 
has become a recognised element in the calcu- 
lations of nations. Great Britain and the 
United States are the representatives of that 
mighty influence, becoming still mightier as it 
more and more sweeps away the small rem- 
nants of feudal influence. Why therefore 
should not two such nations, the one confess- 
edly foremost on the American continent, the 
other actually so (of all European nations) on 
the Asiatic continent, together discuss and if 
possible together arrange by joint counsels and 
influence, if seen to be reasonable, international 
intercourse generally, and most especially as 
bearing on international commercial inter- 
course ; discuss them not like advocates press- 
ing logic to its limits in the construction of 
technical advantage, but like great umpires, 
conscious of mutual strength as of mutual in- 
rest? One of your remarks assures me that 
you will confirm this sentiment. Long ago 
has public wisdom taught, that the prosperity 
of nations is linked together, each being apt to 
prosper the more as all prosper. In concerted 
operations with England, it might fall to our 
lot to be auxiliary to the interests of a weak 
party for the common benefit. 

But, my dear sir, neither of us perhaps 



would find the predominating numbers of our 
countrymen prepared at this juncture to look 
with favorable first impressions on the policy 
you suggest and so well explain, although I 
listen favorably to it. We have become too 
powerful. So at first it would probably be 
thought. Through our freedom, industry, 
boundless command of fertile lands, and, 
crowning all, the happy adaptation of our in- 
stitutions as they now exist and have ever ex- 
isted, south and north, to the character, habits, 
interests and wants of our whole people ; 
through these, as the great impelling causes 
for drawing out an exuberant prosperity, our 
population, riches and power have been aug- 
mented rapidly and prodigiously. It would 
be nothing strange, but rather a little excus- 
able, if it produced in us moments of patriotic 
intoxication. If our increase in the past has 
been prodigious, it baffles calculation in the 
future. It is in vain that we exaofoferate ; for, 
as was said of us when British colonies, while 
the dispute goes on, the exaggeration ends. 
The facts get up to it. Of our present power 
we are naturally proud, and it has increased 
proportionably, possibly in a degree beyond 
that, our confidence in ourselves. England is 
powerful too, but we think her less so than 



she is. These twofold considerations render 
it unlikely that we would be willing at pre- 
sent to share a policy with her aiming to coun- 
teract influences among any of the great con- 
tinental powers of Europe, however far they 
might stretch absolutism on the one hand, or 
run into new modes of agrarianism on the 
other ; or to concert with her, measures for any 
other purposes. 

So long also have we been accustomed to 
regard England with suspicion, and to look to 
France as our true connexion in the other 
hemisphere, if any we are to have, that these 
feelings have become political habits with us. 
We should scarcely know how to change 
them. New phases in the political horizon, 
some visible, others approaching, to recom- 
mend to our dispassionate consideration new 
and different feelings, might not at -first be 
seen. We remain in the beaten track, not 
rousing ourselves out of it. An impediment 
more powerful is to be taken into the account. 
It is the more liable to mislead, because sooth- 
ing to our strongest national feelings. We are 
beginning to count upon our own supremacy 
on the water. Our thoughts lift themselves 
up to supremacy in other things sooner, it may 
be, than we shall acquire it absolutely, in all 



things, even upon this continent and its ad- 
juncts. In these miraculous days of steam, 
and electricity, and material advancement 
otherwise, in ways never expected or dreamed 
of, "progress" is not confined to ourselves, 
amazing as ours has been. Other nations have 
caught its spirit. Especially is England im- 
bued with it; and, in conjunction with the in- 
creasing liberality of her legislation and saga- 
city of her policy, is making full profit of it in 
carrying forward her resources and strengthen- 
ing her dominion at home and abroad. She 
sees what the age is doing, and is harnessed for 
the race. She bounds forward in spite of all 
supposed or real drawbacks upon her. In some 
things she leads; as in establishing a great 
system of ocean steamers, suited to commerce 
and war, which we, following, are surpassing; 
and in cheap postage, which we have copied, 
and will also improve upon I hope. I do not 
mention other things ; but all w^ho watch what 
she is about, may perceive that she is vigor- 
ously alive to the new age with all its requisi- 
tions upon enterprising and energetic nations. 
She knows also that mere numbers, do not al- 
ways constitute the sole element in national 
strength any more than in national wisdom. 
Moreover, the opinion spreads among us 



10 

since our power became manifest, that it is 
now more than ever our allotted destiny, 
through the overshadowing^ influences of our 
example, if not more or less a resulting duty 
through means and appliances which power 
gives, to change the governments of the world. 
Instead of " all nature's difference keeping 
nature's peace,"* the wish appears to be 
growing upon us to behold all nations alike — 
all like ourselves; a good wish, could the thing 
be. But is it reasonable to suppose that all 
governments will ever be alike, any more than 
that the earth will be overspread with only one 
plant, though it were wheat — the very best of 
them. Your views on our foreign relations 
and policy, my dear sir, open a fertile field to 
reflection. I am not able at this time to do 
more than thus express myself of them ; and I 
should not do you justice unless I held them 
all up as treated in your pamphlet. It is also 
the field least susceptible of being closely in- 
spected, and is least accurately explored in 
point of fact, of any other falling within the 
usual scope of thought and inquiry among our 
people. The foreign relations of all countries 

* Pope. Voltaire in his Louis XIV., says that the English reason 
better than any other people ; and that the poets of no other nation 
have treated morality in verse so well. 



11 

lie more out of sight from general view, than 
home concerns, and are less studied, because 
less apt, at first, unless under extraordinary 
conjunctures, to affect the immediate or per- 
ceptible interests of a people. What 1 very 
much like in your discussion is, that whilst in 
its (general drift it is awake to the changes of 
the age, it does not exclude, as an element in 
reasoning, truths in government that never 
change, no matter what may be its external 
forms. Another good quality must commend 
it to all; namely, that you avoid all "frightful 
confidence," as a French waiter calls it, in 
assertion or opinion on subjects intrinsically 
devoid of certainty. 

Turning then to your letter, weighing with 
it the general matter of the pamphlet, and 
having more immediate reference to your sug- 
gestions respecting England and ourselves, I 
would take the liberty of saying, as you do not 
at all seem to have made up your mind to 
write more, proceed with the discussion ; am- 
plify and enforce it as you could do from your 
attainments and power of applying them, were 
I not somewhat checked in such counsels at 
present by incipient signs of some totally new 
feelings into which we seem to be sliding to- 



12 

wards that power, notwithstanding the elo- 
quent things which the British minister, Sir 
Henry Bulwer, has said of the two countries 
in his intellectual and classical speeches at 
public* entertainments in ours, and to the good 
sense and elevation of which I, as an Ameri- 
can, am fully willing to accede. I even desire, 
as one individual of the community, to do so 
in a spirit of acknowledgment to him for his 
open and manly utterance of sentiments so 
valuable in jny opinion to both countries, and 
so gratefully in unison with the highest duties 
of the diplomatic trust he so honorably fills. I 
wish that the press of his country would take 
a lesson which it so often wants while speak- 
ing of us, from his just, generous and enlarged 
sentiments towards us, expressed in the midst 
of devotion the most ardent to his own coun- 
try, for which all must honor him the more. 

Scarcely do I know how to portray the novel 
feelings to which I have allusion, but will 
touch upon them. In the day of our compara- 
tive weakness, we had a feeling of uneasiness 
towards England. It was prone to think evil; 
and, from many and obvious causes, was 
largely a harsh feeling. It never rose to fear, 
but was anxious and brooding, from the sense 



13 

we had of her power. At the present era, the 
consciousness of our own power, appears to be 
creating an utter insensibility to hers. The 
change, so far, is intelligible, to whatever ex- 
treme it may have gone. But the new position 
towards her at which we have arrived in regard 
to that great test among nations, their power, 
seems to be bringing in its train another new 
feeling, even a new doctrine, hitherto as strange. 
The more strange is it, as the very reverse 
might rather have been anticipated with the 
ascending influence of the American name. 
We would throw her oif altogether as our pa- 
rent stock. "We would strike at the very foun- 
dation on which so imposing, so well propor- 
tioned, so majestic a political fabric has been 
raised by us in this new and bounteous land ! 
In portions of the Middle States, in parts of 
the great West, and in the North-West, a doc- 
trine is started, yes truly a doctrine is occa- 
sionally started and struggles to peep upwards, 
that we are not of the Anglo-Saxon race! 
This, at first blush, may seem incredible. In- 
dications of it may not have reached you at the 
South ; but so it is. How much farther the 
heterodox is to go, what shapes take, how 
much more of history is to be uprooted for its 



14 

sake, and for what ends, passes my compre- 
hension as it probably will yours. 

Some of the causes of it may be easily read. 
Others I need not recount. That the English 
are a mixed race is true ; and so much the bet- 
ter for them, as Macauley has forcibly pointed 
out in* some of the best pages of his history. 
That Scotland and Ireland are of her home 
empire, all know. That from these portions 
of it we had large numbers of our people dur- 
ing and before the Revolution, of the highest 
ability and merit, as well as those of German 
and Dutch ancestry, and of French, from the 
Hugunots, is also true ; and equally true that 
the great American family has been strength- 
ened and enriched by subsequent incorpora- 
tions into it from these and other sources. It 
was so that Rome attained her final grandeur. 
But that the charters of the thirteen original 
colonies which founded this great nation, were 
all derived from England ; that Independence 
was declared in the English language; that 
that is the language of the nation, its laws, 
literature, state papers, journals of congress; 
of those who sit in its judgment seats ; of all 
the records of its wonderful colonial growth 
and importance, as Burke truly, philosophi- 



15 

call J and gorgeously described both in his im- 
perishable speeches; the language which em- 
balms the immortal story of our Revolution, 
with Washington at his head, himself of full 
English descent; the language which its other 
heroes and sages spoke and the rich treasures 
of which formed their minds, taught them to 
think, and supplied thepa with the most effect- 
ive of all their intellectual weapons for arguing 
down the exercise of arbitrary power over us, 
more, far more, than Grecian or Roman au- 
thors,* who so often side with power against 
right; the language in which goes the word of 
command to our army and navy, and embodies 
the general orders after victory — such facts 
belong to the past, as well as that we inherit 
trial by jury from the English, the habeas cor- 
pus from the English, and the great elements 
of the English common law. The solid, efful- 
gent, memory of all, cannot be obliterated. 
There they are, with the past. The retrospect 
of them is the richest that any people under 
heaven have ever been able to claim as estab- 
lishing their origin, and stamping the causes 
of their stupendous advancement and unparal- 
leled renown in so brief a period of time. Eng- 
land, no other race, England with her host of 



16 

famous men, in genius, science, letters; in 
hardy, persevering, and bold enterprise; in a 
high spirited sense of independence and free- 
dom; famous in peace, famous in war, famous 
all over the globe, by sea and land, before we 
were founded — this England, with her wide 
circle of faults, voider of glory — is the true pa- 
rent stock of this great nation, deny it who 
may; and that she is, will stand out in all time 
as her greatest glory of all. I pass from the 
seeming digression, though it will probably 
strike you as not irrelevant to the subject in 
hand to us. 

No part of your liberal and enlightened 
effort has drawn more of my attention, than 
the part about Cuba. This question, from 
whatever point surveyed, is, as you intimate, 
beset with difficulty. I think with you, that 
the immense shipping of England, her com- 
mercial interests and sympathies, her long ex- 
isting gulf settlements, and her adjacent inte- 
rests in the West Indies, entitle her to a rea- 
sonable share in our counsels and confidence 
on those subjects. To such considerations as 
you unfold them, I would emphatically add, 
that the day of dread of her power of aggres- 
sion upon lis has gone by. But would the 



17 

popular voice of our country permit this coun- 
seling with England? Our jealousy of her is 
not at an end, however able we now may be 
to counteract its injurious effects, should she 
meditate any; and it is the popular voice 
which, whether hastily or deliberately uttered, 
will henceforth, and more and more as our 
power increases, decide without appeal these 
and other great coming questions in our foreign 
policy, before the executive or congress can 
consider them. That voice will be likely to 
proclaim absolute American ascendancy in this 
gulf, as on this continent, and its adjuncts. 
With its present predispositions, it would pro- 
bably listen to no participation with England. 
It would distrust her motives. It would under- 
derrate her present power and turn with incre- 
dulity from those sources of it which, in the 
opinions of her own intelligent and ruling peo- 
ple, promise to give it increase for long periods 
to come. 

These are some of my impressions. You 
may not share them all with me. I, indeed, 
might incline to say, as you also perhaps might, 
why should two powerful nations, each know- 
ing its own power, and each in possession of 
its independence and circumspection, distrust 

B 



18 

each other ? It is for the week to be jealous 
and fearful. The strong are neither. Or why 
should two nations like the United States and 
Britain, in their altered attitude to each other, 
continue to quarrel in their thoughts, because 
they have been twice at war? France and 
England were hereditary enemies, as used to 
be said, for six or eight hundred years. Their 
wars w^ere hardly to be counted up. They 
had invasions and counter invasions, sangui- 
nary and destructive. They had conquests 
and counter conquests. But under the influ- 
ence of sentiments more liberal and humaniz- 
ing as well as politic, which have come into 
operation with the present century, they have 
often in latter years been seen acting in amity 
and concert. This belongs to conscious great- 
ness. Why should we fear any joint move- 
ment with Britain? Is it because we would 
aim to do wrong, or claim too much for our 
share in the counsels? I am unwilling to 
believe it. We shall, inevitably have enough 
of territory, influence and everything else as 
time goes on, if we keep together. Is it because 
her orovernment differs in its constitutional 
forms from ours? Would this be wise? 
Surely we cannot imagine that she will over- 



19 

turn ours. Our noble institutions of freedom, 
with all their preponderating excellence — and 
to our British ancestors, said General Jackson 
in his Messaore to congrress of December '32, 
we owe high obligations for many of the most 
valuable parts of them — nevertheless intermin- 
gle with them defects interwoven with the cre- 
ations of man. Our well founded national 
pride, running to the borders of too much self- 
exaltation, couples itself with an insensible 
proneness to disparage nations whose institu- 
tions are unlike our own ; and chiefly do num- 
bers among us give themselves to the belief 
that England is an impoverished, sinking 
country, yet always thinking of mischief to 
other countries. Some would have it, that the 
" World's Fair," soon to open at her crystaline 
palace in the Park, that imposing scene 
of the industry and genius of modern na- 
tions, to be concentrated in peaceful rivalry 
within her metropolis, is only a cunning con- 
trivance, transparent as its own walls, to hood- 
wink mankind and save herself a little longer 
from ruin. How to reconcile apprehensions 
that she may injure us, with a belief that she 
is tottering under burdens too much for her to 
carrv, and that she cannot cast oif, would seem 



20 

not ail easy task. But topics such as these 
would lead me too far. I will therefore sepa- 
rate myself from them, lest I should be inflict- 
ing dissertations upon you, instead of writing 
a letter already I fear, become too long. 

I must by no means omit to remark, that the 
difiiculty of practical arrangements to any just 
and guarded extent, between ourselves and 
Great Britain in regard to Cuba, the gulf, 
and parts adjacent, would be augmented by 
the great question of the day, one still deep- 
rooted and angry — I mean that of Slavery. 
Of the true nature of this question, as one ex- 
clusively internal to ourselves, England is as 
ignorant as we in general are of her home 
affairs, perhaps more so; yet she decides upon 
it even more confidently than we do on things 
belonging to her internal condition and pros- 
pects. But this need not check concert be- 
tween us on occasions more free from embar- 
rassment, should any such arise and give hope 
of good results. 

At your request I send with this letter other 
copies of the humble political tracts transmitted 
after receiving your first pamphlet, but which 
it appears did not reach you. I send also, for 
your indulgent acceptance, an unpretending 



21 

volume thrown out a few years ago, where 
you may see, in the places indicated on a slip 
of paper, notices of the first attempt in our 
diplomatic annals towards international co-ope- 
ration, on our part, with England against other 
powers. This is the instance to which I alluded 
in the beginning. The object was highly just, 
and the result sufficiently successful, though 
not under the forms proposed, owing to a sin- 
gle impediment at that time existing. The 
main proposal was, and its first suggestion 
came from the English foreign secretary (Mr. 
Canning) to the minister of the United States 
in London, I then being in that capacity, that 
the two powers should make a joint declaration 
before Europe to the effect that if the Holy 
Alliance, after overthrowing the then existing 
constitution in Spain, established by the peo- 
ple under the auspices of the cortes (which 
ultimately they did overthrow by the instru- 
mentality of a French army) attempted, by 
force of arms, or force of influence, to arrest 
the progress of emancipation and independence 
in the Spanish colonies on this continent, the 
two powers would put themselves against so 
arbitrary a project. The project was stopped 
effectually. England would have stopped it 



22 

herself, but sought our co-operation; and the 
knowledge by the Allies that if things had 
proceeded to extremity, it would have been 
afforded, was doubtless of full value in raising 
a bar to the least attempt at so audacious a 
course. There will also be found in the same 
book, a condensed history of the celebrated 
" Monroe Declaration" on the subject of Euro- 
pean interference in the affairs of this conti- 
nent, put forth in his Message to congress in 
1823. 

In conclusion, I pray you, my dear sir, to 
believe in the cordial consideration and esteem 
with which I am 

Your faithful servant 

and correspondent, 

Richard Rush. 



Sydenham, near Philadelphia, i 
May 3, 1851. S 

MY DEAR SIR : . 

I have received your letter of the 
26th of April, and will reply to it at once, as I 
am lookino: forward to eno-ao-ements shortly 
that may make larger drafts than usual upon 
my time. 

In a review of diplomatic history, should 
you undertake such a task, a division into the 
three periods you indicate, 1st, from the peace 
of Westphalia to the peace of Utrecht; 2d, 
from the peace of Utrecht to the peace of Paris 
in 1763; 3d, from the peace of Paris to the 
present times, would unfold a large plan full 
of matter in the highest degree interesting in 
international affairs. 

The third period would be the most impor- 
tant and stirring. Parts of it fall within the 
personal knowledge of many still living, and 
the easy researches of all. It comprises the 
most startling revolutions among nations, revo- 
lutions in which Goddesses of Reason were en- 
throned in place of other gods, and kings top- 



24 

pled down ; the most formidable operations of 
war, with results the most momentous by land 
and sea; and the most wide-sweeping transac- 
tions in diplomacy of the last century and 
early part of the one in which we live. Under 
this period, opportunity would open of doing 
justice to our country for the part it took in the 
cause of neutrality ; and also of recalling an 
outline of our achievements in arms, that ulti- 
mate negotiator to which we were finally 
obliged to have recourse. Without recalling 
these achievements, the spirit and compass of 
our diplomacy could not be adequately illus- 
trated. The two, together, give us a marked 
place in history, had we done nothing else. 
The subject is ample and inviting. It is known 
in all its aspects only partially among our- 
selves; and I confess that I arn tempted by the 
opportunity your letter affords, to say some- 
thing more of it than would otherwise be ne- 
cessary, in the possible hope of being able to 
create in your mind some little inducement to 
go into it all yourself I must do this at the 
risk of perhaps ^ot always saying what you 
may concur in, a risk I had to run in my for- 
mer letter; but my errors may start truths to 
you, and I will knowingly fall into none of fact. 



25 

It is by recalling facts in their connexion with 
principles, that I would desire to let it be seen 
that the greatness of this republic did not be- 
gin yesterday, in spheres the very highest on 
the broad theatre of the world, prefiguring the 
commanding destiny before it if we are true to 
ourselves. 

From the commencement of the wars ofthe 
old French Revolution and earlier, the state 
papers of the United States which aimed at 
upholding the fair rights of the neutral flag, 
and thus maintaining the domaia of commerce 
and civilization, would probal)ly form, w^ere all 
collected and arranged, the best international 
code under this head to be found in any one 
volume extant. The increase of our tonnage 
during these wars, was very great. In addi- 
tion to our large exports and imports, for we 
then manufactured but little, we took the lead 
of all nations in an immense carrying trade. 
This greatly exposed our merchant vessels in 
all seas to high-handed molestation in all ways. 
Besides the heavy outrages we received from 
the first French republic, outrages within our 
territory and ports as well as at sea, there was 
the British "Provision order" of June, 1793; 
the French consular and imperial decrees of 



26 

Berlin, Milan, Bayonne, Rambouillet; the Bri- 
tish orders in council issued and re-issued ; the 
application of their old rule of 56; vast nomi- 
nal blockades, half the world over, by England, 
and the enforcement by France of the " conti- 
nental system," so called, of Napoleon — both 
alike desolating to legitimate commerce; the 
impressment of our men by England, with her 
deeply aggravated attack upon our frigate 
Chesapeake in time of peace, each nation striv- 
ing, as if in the rivalry of belligerent fury, 
which could wrong us the most — all these and 
more than these, made up the violations, indig- 
nities and losses to which we were exposed. 
To settle, as between these two giant nations, 
the proportion of belligerent enormity against 
us, would be extremely difficult. Altogether, 
they brought us into a position to stand up 
for the neutral cause, and we became foremost 
in that championship for not much less than a 
quarter of a century while the world was in 
arms. It was a most eventful epoch. Many 
of the liberal principles which had been gain- 
ing head under maxims inculcated by a long 
list of pure and able publicists, and the consent 
of nations, were beaten back by the fearful 
height to which the war passions of Europe 



27 

were roused. These swept away all reason 
and justice. A ruthless law, the law of force, 
or " retaliating force" as it was often termed, 
usurped their place, seeming to portend the 
entire extinction of reason and justice among 
the nations of the earth. 

Yet, in 1814, when Napoleon was first 
struck down, the great Allies took no notice of 
us in their treaties of peace and settlement at 
Vienna, multitudinous as those documents 
were, and comprehending almost all other sub- 
jects between nations, as they did. Not one 
word of intercession had we from any one of 
them. Not even a breath of good will did they 
waft over to us. In regard to our. situation, 
they all became mutes. We had gone to war 
single handed against England. The war 
was still raging between us. Nevertheless, 
they left us to be crushed by her enormous 
power; for her undivided strength by sea and 
land, was now free to be used exclusively 
against us. Such was the condition of things. 
Events flowed from them among the most 
striking that have ever occurred between na- 
tions. To portray them fitly, would call for 
the pen of a Tacitus or Thucydides. The 
calm retrospect of them, now that the passions 



28 

and partisanships of the day are over, seems 
little short of miraculous. In after times, they 
will rank among the marvels of history. 

The European Alliance left us, I say, to be 
crushed. This they must have believed. This 
inference was forced upon them, when they 
looked only to the overwhelming preponder- 
ance of British naval power. Consider what 
it was ! Not only did it preponderate to an 
extent making all numerical comparison ab- 
surd, over any we had in a state of equipment, 
but over that of all Europe combined. Still, it 
was absence of wisdom, glaring absence of 
wisdom, in those continental powers, either 
through fear of offending England, or dislike 
to the principle of our government, coldly to 
stand aloof from us. Most especially was it 
so in France and Russia. Never did great 
nations err more in maxims of state. We were 
fighting for the just freedom of the seas. We 
were fighting their battles as well as our own. 
We were fighting them with a more sterling 
and well directed courage, and, as it turned 
out, with more effect, than ever marked any, 
the greatest, of Napoleon's battles or most 
splendid of his campaigns — even when fresh 
from the fields of Marengo, Austerlitz or Jena. 



29 

Let not this be called American boast. Rath- 
er let facts be recalled. Let these show if I 
say too much. I desire to keep within the 
limit. 

The very act of our going to war was heroic. 
No language could be too strong in describing 
it. We were to fight against incalculably 
more odds than ever Napoleon did, almost in- 
conceivably more. We went out upon the 
deep with only a sling in our hands. We 
went against a foe that it might have been 
thought would at once consign all our ships to 
its dark caverns. That foe had vanquished 
French ships wherever to be found, brave as 
the French ever are, until all their ships were 
captured, sunk, or had to seek shelter from 
destruction by running into their ports. This 
was their sole refuge. Not one of them could 
venture any more upon the ocean, singly or in 
fleets. Not another gun could the Emperor 
mount at sea. A similar doom had awaited 
the navies of Holland, Spain and all other na- 
tions. The idea of our coping with England, 
elicited sarcasms in the house of commons. 
Not only did we begin our battle after Napo- 
leon had exhausted to no purpose but disasters 
to himself, his resources and rage against Eng- 



30 

land, but there was more to appal us had that 
feeling been in us. He had drawn upon the 
whole maritime border of the Mediterranean 
and Atlantic, among European nations con- 
quered and tributary to him (and which among 
them were not?) to aid him in ships and sea- 
men to go against England on the seas, or in- 
vade her in her island. All these were scat- 
tered or demolished. England had driven 
them all back to port, or made wrecks of them. 
Duncan at Camperdown, Howe on the 1st of 
June, '94, Nelson at the Nile, Cochran in 
Basque Roads, Parker at Copenhagen, Nelson 
again at Trafalgar, these names recall vividly, 
but only in part recall, the awful destruction 
which the naval thunders of England dealt 
among her foes wherever it was possible for 
her to assail them. Never before was there 
such havoc on the sea by one nation against all 
the rest. All had yielded in hopeless submission 
to that one. For warlike purposes, it is not too 
much to say that Europe was annihilated upon 
the seas. The banner of the United States, 
alone afloated in solitary fearlessness. Lastly, 
we began the fight with a navy which was 
as nothing in size to the French navy, when 
Napoleon first had the direction of it against 



31 

England. When then, in all time, were such 
odds seen as we had against us ? I remember 
nothing like it. I can recall at present but 
one partial resemblance. That was upon land, 
when the great Frederic fought against Aus- 
tria, Russia and France, gaining splendid vic- 
tories over them, and baffling them, until 
finally encompassed by their countless legions, 
but establishing the Prussian monarchy in 
spite of them all. 

And what was the progress, what the issue, 
of the contest upon the great highway of na- 
tions, as we maintained it, after the daring 
manner in which we went into it? Instead of 
our ships being driven from the seas as Napo- 
leon's were, they increased in number as the 
war went on. They increased in the activity 
of their service and brilliancy of their victories. 
They were in all seas. They ran down to 
Cape Horn. They scoured the Pacific. They 
were all over the Atlantic. They went into 
the West Indies and the East Indies. Skill- 
fully avoiding the enemy's fleets, they hunted 
up his single ships. They watched in their 
paths. They entered the British channel. In 
all latitudes they sought this gigantic foe on 
his own element. They strove to be foremost 



32 

in the attack. They encountered him, ship to 
ship, with a chivalry, with a perfection of dis- 
cipline, with a constant superiority in gun- 
nery,* and with a success utterly without ex- 
ample by any other nation in the world before. 
In vain did he plead that our ships were hea- 
vier than his. In some instances it was the 
reverse. In others his were not merely sub- 
dued, but shot to pieces and sunk, in an almost 
incredibly short time. Glory then to this 
young and dauntless nation, which, relying 
upon itself alone to vindicate neutral rights, 
while Europe with folded arms was waiting to 
see it sacrificed, speedily and triumphantly 
broke the terrific spell of English invincibility 
upon the ocean. What a result ! What a con- 
firmation of the motto emblazoned on our un- 
aided banner, "free trade and sailors' 

RIGHTS !" 

It riveted universal attention. Britain had 
ruled the waves. So her poets sang. So na- 
tions felt, all but this. Her trident had laid 
them all prostrate; and how fond was she of 

» This is fully admitted by Major General Sir Howard Douglass, 
in his "Treatise on Naval Gunnery," a book of high authority, pub- 
lished with the approbation of the lords commissioners of the admi- 
ralty in England. 



33 

considering this emblem as identified with the 
sceptre of the world ! Behold, then, the flag 
which had everywhere reigned in triumph 
supreme, sending forth terror from its folds; 
w^hich for " a thousand years had braved tlie 
battle and the breeze," behold it again, and 
agrain, and a^ain, lowered to the stars and 
Stripes which had risen in the new hemisphere. 
The spectacle was magnificent. It radiated 
to the skies. Both hemispheres stood at gaze. 
The European expectation that we were to be 
crushed, was turned into a feeling of admira- 
tion unbounded. Some gave themselves to 
wild joy, as the Danes, whose exasperated feel- 
ings under the seizure of their navy at Copen- 
hagen, had not subsided. Our victories had a 
moral effect far transcending the number or 
size of their ships vanquished. For such a 
blow upon the mighty name of England, such 
a wound, after many idle excuses, she had at 
last no balm so effectual as that it was inflict- 
ed, and could only have been inflicted, by a 
race sprung from herself. 

Here let me say, that no one in our whole 
nation did more towards infusing into congress 
the lofty tone that led to these memorable re- 
sults, than Mr. Calhoun. Congress was back- 
c 



34 

ward at declaring war, from the terrible odds 
against us, and the out-door belief almost uni- 
versal, except in the navy itself, that we could 
not face England. Calhoun went with the 
very foremost of those patriotic and high spi- 
rited men in both houses who were for throw- 
ing the nation upon its courage and its sword. 
Happen what would, they knew we should not 
be dishonored ; whilst ignoble submission was 
sinking us as a great people. We began to 
build ships of the line as the contest drew to a 
close, our energies rising with the contest. 
On the lakes, we had only fleets of small 
size. England, to meet us there in like fleets, 
sent over through the Canadas the frames of 
vessels, and her naval officers and men. There 
also, our victories in each instance where the 
fleets met, were alike decisive and resplendent, 
though won with great loss of blood on both 
sides.* But the matchless deeds of our fri- 
gates and sloops of war on the ocean, did more 
than was ever done before for the neutral 
cause; more than was done by the famous 

* In the engagement on Lake Erie, Barclay, the British commo- 
dore, a gallant officer who had served under Lord Nelson, having the 
wind at first, bore down on our fleet with the bands of music on board 
his ships playing "Rule Britannia." 



35 

"Armed neutrality" of 1780. Turn to the ac- 
count of that maritime league, one of mere 
words which England disregarded, and see 
how little it achieved, compared to American 
ships. As to the "Armed neutrality" of l&OO, 
England shivered that to pieces in a day with 
her naval cannon. 

Equally true is it that Napoleon was blind 
to our naval efficiency and capabilities. It 
was the greatest of his mistakes. He judged 
of them from our having no ships of the line 
when the war beo^an, thouo^h even then we had 
a larger commerce and tonnage than any nation 
but England, perhaps double of all that France 
had. He ought to have remembered this, and, 
in connexion with our established aptitudes for 
the sea, to have drawn the proper conclusions. 

Napoleon seemed ignorant that to keep up 
a large navy in peace was no part of our sys- 
tem. Our co-operation with him, had he 
sought it in time and on terms to which a spi- 
rited nation could have assented, would have 
been of more consequence to him than any one 
of his European alliances. We were the only 
nation to make head against England; and 
England was the nation that, by her exhaust- 
less resources for war by herself, for sometimes 



36 

she was left alone; her subsidies to other 
powers ; her indomitable courage ; her leader- 
ship of the combinations against him, and per- 
petual defiance of him, while Russia, Austria 
and Prussia, each in turn cowered or rushed 
into his embraces; England, by never giving 
up, but always fighting on and inciting other 
powers to go on with the fight — caused his 
empire, after its tempest-like sway, to come 
down with a crash. He never did anything 
for neutral rights. He never cared anything 
for them. His iron grasp w^as at ubiquity of 
dominion. England stood in his way. Eng- 
land was the barrier against which all his ha- 
tred, all his array of power, his ostentatious 
column at Boulogne, all his bulletins, all his 
threats, were in vain. His efforts for her down- 
fall, under plea of restoring the liberty of the 
seas — for this 7vas his plea — efforts that over- 
leaped and put to scorn all international law 
in his treatment of us upon the seas, ended in 
his own downfall, leaving England at the head 
of Europe. So ended the great war drama of 
those days. It closed like a mighty epic, full 
of bloody grandeur — nations, kings and princi- 
palities its characters, the globe its theatre. 
But we had no downfall. We rose. In 



37 

looking back upon our share in the battles, 
they seem like the romance of real war — the 
consummation of its triumphs upon the waves. 
Nor can I quit this part of the glowing theme 
without adding, that the martial beauty it has 
forever imprinted on our shield, is enhanced 
by the signal courtesy with which our victors 
invariably treated the foe when the battle was 
over. 

Call to mind also, I beg of you, what our 
diplomacy has always been striving to do in 
other fields, new until we entered them, for the 
interests of humanity and the right kind of 
progress among nations. Besides our early 
treaty with Prussia for the abolition of priva- 
teering, you will find, page 576 of the book 
sent to you, the proposals this nation has made 
to all maritime nations, for abolishing all 

PRIVATE WAR UPON THE OCEAN. This gOCS bc- 

yond the abolition of privateering. It aims at 
tying up the hands of governments from be- 
coming plunderers of private property on the 
high seas. The effect of adopting the princi- 
ple would be, that national ships could no 
longer capture merchant vessels engaged in 
lawful trade, though belonging to one of the 
belligerent parties. 



38 

Bear in mind also, that the nation making 
these preposals to all other nations, had been 
able, with her national ships and letters of 
marque, to capture twelve or thirteen hundred 
British merchant vessels during our short war 
of 1812. Hence, we were not likely, in the 
long run, to be the losing party among nations, 
had we stood upon the base calculations of ra- 
pacity fostered by privateering, and the cap- 
turing of merchantmen by national ships. It 
is a vicious old principle, the relic of a barbar- 
ous age. It has not for a long time been acted 
upon by armies on land. These do not make 
war on private property ; but the barbarity has 
been kept up at sea in a spirit little better than 
that of the bucaneers ; no better, even worse, 
considering the intermediate advances in civi- 
lization and refinement. Neither England, 
nor France, nor, as far as I am informed, any 
other nation, has yet acceded to these our bene- 
ficent proposals. They originated in Mr. Mon- 
roe's time, while Mr. Adams was Secretary of 
State. 

On page 465 of the same volume you will 
also find, briefly mentioned, the manly homage 
which that eminent English statesmen, Mr. 
Canning, when foreign secretary, and who was 



39 

not thought to have been over friendly to us 
at earlier periods of his life, ultimately paid in 
parliament when the war was past and gone, to 
some of our neutral doctrines. These doctrines 
were first essentially laid down by Mr. Jeffer- 
son in his able and rich compositions prepared 
when Secretary of State to General Washing- 
ton, and under his sanction, in regard to our 
foreign relations. They were afterwards more 
fully maintained and extended in the nume- 
rous state papers, and always masterly as nu- 
merous, from the pen of Mr. Madison during 
the eight years he filled the department of state 
under Mr. Jefferson. They are doctrines that 
will probably receive more and more approba- 
tion from all nations, as time goes on and con- 
tinues to bring with it, as we may reasonably 
hope, further meliorations to the code of war. 
They are as replete with international wisdom, 
as with American dignity and spirit. It was 
their persevering resistance to the encroach- 
ments of England and France; above all, it 
was their immovable stand against impress- 
ment, their noble reiterations that our flag 
should sacredly protect all who sailed under 
it, it was these great state papers which finally 
opened our path of glory upon the ocean; a 



40 

glory the purer, as it blazed up only in defend- 
ing;- ourselves ao^ainst lonsf continued and enor- 
mous wrongs. Come what may in the future, 
we can never be deprived of this inheritance. 
It is a proud and splendid inheritance. We 
owe eternal gratitude to the illustrious men of 
that early day of the republic, Jefferson and 
Madison, who (after Washington), were the 
primary sources of it. It has been my lot to 
have known them both, but chiefly the latter, 
of whose cabinet after he became President, I 
was the youngest, humblest, and now am the 
only surviving member ; and I fulfill a grate- 
ful duty in here recalling their exalted merits, 
linked, as they ever must be, to the lasting 
fame of this great nation. Their counsels re- 
founded the nation. Until the war of 1812, 
we were still half-colonial. Its issue conferred 
upon us a new and commanding position. 
Until then, we were in danger of losing the 
glories we had gained in the Revolution. It 
was even alledged that the absorbing spirit of 
commercial gain had at length broken in upon 
our martial and other high toned characteris- 
tics of that era. The war corrected the mis- 
take. Mr. Jefferson took upon himself to re- 
ject, without even submitting it to the Senate, 



41 

the treaty negotiated by Mr. Monroe and Mr. 
Pinkney, in 1806, solely because it contained 
no stipulation against impressment, although 
sufficiently satisfactory at that time in other 
respects. Furthermore : Our ministers first 
sent to England after the war, were fully 
instructed to let her government know, 
that any attempt in future to renew it, al- 
though the question was not brought into the 
treaty of Ghent — the practice having ceased 
by the general peace — w^ould immediately be 
resisted. But who can suppose, after the 
events of the one war, that so unspeakable an 
outrage upon us would be repeated ? It was 
that very outrage, combined with the special 
remembrance of the attack on the Chesapeake 
in perpetration of it, that turned the war scale 
against England rather than France. The 
latter had done enough to justify our going to 
war with her. According to her means, she had 
captured more of our vessels than the English. 
She would even consume them by fire upon the 
ocean, cargoes and all, fearing that, as her ill- 
gotten prizes, British cruisers would intercept 
them if she attempted to send them into lier 
ports. But who, I again ask, who in his senses, 

D 



42 

can dream of England ever renewing the tran- 
scendant outrage of impressment on American 
decks? It is impossible. In this age, Britons 
themselves would not think of it. They would 
no longer practise it among themselves if war 
came on. The horrors of the press-gang are 
gone forever; and this republic in 1812, played 
its great part in helping to kill them forever. 

In fine : If you view this whole, fertile sub- 
ject, at all in the lights I do, and can make up 
your mind to take it in hand, a chapter of sur- 
passing interest might be written upon it. It 
is therefore that I would presume to commend 
it to your investigations under aspects I touch 
upon and others that would fully occur to you. 

I do not at this moment remember any bio- 
graphy of M. de Vergennes. There is a good 
deal said of him in one of the volumes of Flas- 
san's history of French diplomacy. Gratefully 
appreciating, as we all do, the services we had 
from France of that day and age, I neverthe- 
less do not incline to extol M. de Vergennes 
extravagantly. It has always appeared to me, 
that your accomplished Colonel John Laurens 
accelerated his steps in our cause. 

There is a book, published in 1801, men- 
tioned in the preface to de Pradt's " Congress 



43 

of Vienna," entitled " The Three Ages of Co- 
lonies." I have not read, and do not know the 
book; but from its title, possibly something 
might be obtained from it bearing upon the 
review into which I would draw you. I dare 
say you know the work entitled " Diplomacy 
of the United States," published in Boston in 
1826. It is a well written octavo of three or 
four hundred pages, embodying useful facts 
and documents belonging to our diplomatic 
history. The author's name is not given in 
my edition of it. I do not happen to own 
Wheaton's " History of the Law of Nations in 
Europe and America, from the earliest times 
to the treaty of Washington in 1842;" but his 
first work on the " Elements of International 
Law," I regard as one of the most valuable 
books under that head in my library. I often 
consult it, and always with advantage. 

If, as you intimate, you should be disposed 
in the course of the summer to ask information 
on any point contained in the book sent to you, 
I will always be ready to afford it if in my 
power. 

Apologizing for the length of this letter, into 
which I have been somewhat imperceptibly 



44 

enticed by the intrinsic national interest of its 
topics, 

I renew to you, my dear sir, assurances of 
the cordiality and respect with which I am 
Your sincere 

and faithful servant, 

Richard Rush. 



